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The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee approved a bill Wednesday aimed at increasing competition and reducing waste in government contracting.

"With federal contract purchases now exceeding $400 billion a year and with the alarming waste we have discovered through our investigations, the need for vigorous reform of our contracting operations is evident," said ranking member Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, adding that new contracts subjected to open competition have fallen below 50 percent.

The bill (S. 680), which was adopted by voice vote, would require that federal agencies get three offers or provide justification that the maximum practicable competition was obtained for the purchase of property and services. It also requires more transparency a publication of "sole source" orders. The legislation would also more closely link award fees to performance.

It also limits the length of non-competitive contracts that were awarded under exceptional circumstances. The original bill would have required a competitive process be held within 150 days, but a substitute amendment extended that period to 270 days.

The substitute amendment, adopted by voice vote, also requires an analysis of the handling of subcontracting and waste, and it deletes a section of the original bill dealing with strengthening the office of the inspector general. Concerns about the office of the IG will be dealt with in a separate bill, Collins said.

The legislation also aims to recruit and retain acquisition professionals in the federal workforce. Collins noted that 30 percent of contracting personnel will be eligible for retirement in 2011.

The bill increases acquisition workforce training programs including an internship and fellowship program that would pay tuition for students who promise to work in the acquisitions field in the federal government for three years.

"Our goal in this bill is to strengthen competition in federal contracting, improve procurement outcomes, and curtail waste of taxpayers' money," Collins said.

Collins noted several specific cases of government waste including $1.3 million in unnecessary equipment and $2 million in unaccounted for disbursements in a $7 million contract for a polices academy in Iraq, and a $915 million contract with FEMA to build manufactured homes for Hurricane Katrina victims, more than 2000 of which were found to exceed size specifications.

The measure now moves to the Senate floor.

COMMENTS

• Once again Congress is treating the symptom and ignoring the cause. The reason the Govt. now depends so heavily on contracting is its complete inability to hire competent GS Civilians. Either the salary bands make it impossible to find anyone willing to work for that little money or the bureaucracy prevents the hiring of competent individuals. It has recently taking me 6 months to get a hiring list for a GS-9 budget position. If the position had been critical I would have been forced to contract the position in order to complete the action in a timely manner. I was also not able to request that the list be restricted to the actual skills/systems that I needed for the position as that would be unfair to those untrained in those skill/systems. Congress should leave contracting alone for now and fix the GS system first. Fed Up Posted August 6, 2007 8:24 AM
• I wish that the interested Senators and Representatives would have their staffers talk to those of us who work in the field before they attempt to make changes that will have unintended consequences. The overwhelming majority of the problems that they perceive relate to the inability of most program officials to describe their requirements in a manner that will support competition. Those few program managers who are both able and willing to provide thorough statements of work or objectives are then caught out when new political appointees come in wanting something different and insisting on massive changes! Contracting Professional Posted August 2, 2007 6:33 PM
• The naivete of Congress on the subject of contracting and procurement never ceases to amaze me. One of the primary reasons Federal acquisition is as complex, inefficient, and costly as it is is that we have gotten far too much "help" over the years from do-gooders on the Hill who haven't the foggiest notion of how contracted business is transacted and whose primary objective is to pander to constituencies. The sweeping mandates across the system - resulting from the individual acts of a Darleen Druyen, the inevitable waste of an under-provisioned war, or the desperation of a natural disaster - are in themselves wasteful and ineffective. Finally, you cannot "train in" new help in the short to mid term. It must be "hired in" from seasoned contracting and program management veterans from other disciplines and sectors of the work force, starting at the leadership level. Having been that route, I can vouch that the Federal hiring process is a detriment to replenishing the ranks from qualified outside sources. Contract Specialist Posted August 2, 2007 1:41 PM